You make a very good point that the scenario in 2019 is very different from what it was in 2015. Things move very quickly, and the risk is that you could put in regulation that is overly intrusive, or that doesn't actually achieve what you want or has the wrong consequences. I'm always aware of that, but I think we have a lot of good information. Political parties are collecting enormous amounts of data, personal data, sensitive data. Parties have always done so, but it's just reached another level. To me this is a non-partisan issue. It doesn't affect one party more than the other, but currently all political actors have an incentive to up their data operations and their data game.
The pitch that I try to make in this space is that actually privacy rules are to the benefit of political parties. No one wants to be regulated, and it may seem onerous and it may cost money, but imagine what would happen if there was a hack of one of Canada's major political parties, similar to what happened with the Democratic Party in the United States. It wouldn't take many hacks, or many instances of personal information being disclosed by, say, a malicious foreign actor for the public to potentially lose faith or trust in that political party or the system as a whole. I think we are at a moment where it's very important to address the privacy issues, and doing so is in the interest of the political parties themselves.
I tried to suggest a few areas in terms of content, such as the right to know what data a political party holds about you, and the right to correct incorrect information. A lot of hard work is done by volunteers, as you all know, and when you're entering information on an app or on a piece of paper, it's very possible for information to be incorrect, and that may be something the voter, the individual, doesn't want. I think rules on who gets access to political party databases or at least disclosure about that might be helpful as well.
I understand those may at times seem onerous to political parties, but I think they go a long way to instilling confidence in voters that the parties have their best interests in mind. The worst case scenario is a hack. We've seen denial-of-service attacks on political parties. I believe the Prime Minister summarized the Communications Security Establishment report, which said there were low-level attacks in the 2015 election. CSE said there were over 40 incidents of interference around the world, so we shouldn't see Canada as isolated from that. I have a lot of concerns about 2019, and I think privacy addresses some of those.